


The World

by cecilantro



Series: 100 Days Of Ficlets [12]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 16:31:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13930920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilantro/pseuds/cecilantro
Summary: (Based off a prompt from KallistoKrow)"I don’t want to see anyone else end up like me, or you, or Beau-” Molly stops to catch his breath and thoughts before they outrun his quick tongue, “They left, nobody else died. You did what you needed to."





	The World

**Author's Note:**

> As before, I'm dying, PLEASE drop me prompts!  
> [you can drop anon prompts here](http://mollymockerytealeaf.tumblr.com/ask)!  
> Thank you
> 
> This fic is a response to a prompt from [Kallistothekrow on Tumblr](http://kallistothekrow.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> "Caleb obviously has issues with fire. What if he worries about hurting his friends with it when he’s panicking. Who better to calm him down and reassure him then a fire resistant tiefling?"

Caleb wakes up from a nightmare with his hands lighting up like a lantern and his scream choking in his throat, and when it finishes filling him like water fills a flask, he drains and gasps for air.  
It’s Jester’s watch, and she looks around to him but seems unsurprised. She picks lightly across the sleeping forms of the rest of their friends until she reaches one specific bedroll.

She kicks Molly in the back of the head, gently, but with enough firm force to make him splutter awake. He’s reaching for his scimitars before his eyes are open, and draws level to Jester’s navel as he turns, quivering an inch from running her through. She appears bored, blinks at him slowly, and jerks her chin at Caleb, who is still catching his breath and patting his hands together to try and calm the flames.

Jester turns calmly away, moves back to her position, and Mollymauk clambers out of bed with a lack of grace uncharacteristic of him, tucks his scimitar away carefully, and shifts quickly to sit beside Caleb.

Caleb meets his eyes, and Molly sees panic there. His hands are still licked with flames.  
Molly takes Caleb’s hands gently in his own, and Caleb sees him wince, but he quashes the fire anyway.

“Tiefling benefits,” he says quietly, “Fire resistance. Very useful for helping… you.” he seems to want to say something else, something more, but it dies in his throat with the flames between his palms. Caleb takes a rattling half-gasp, half-breath, and Molly moves from holding his hands to holding his wizard instead, pulls him in and holds him tight, Caleb doesn’t resist. He leans in to Molly, very gently, tucks his head in so that Molly can feel the cold-ass tip of his nose press into the skin just above his collarbone.

Molly strokes through his hair, gentle, careful, silent.

At some point, Caleb falls asleep. By the time it happens, he’s managed to wrap his arms around Molly’s waist in return, still caught up by the tiefling, and Molly can feel the instant he finally slips away by the hitch in his breath, and the sudden change of pace. His heart rate has slowed, too, judging by the much calmer, less manic beating that was previously rumbling through Molly’s body as though someone was shaking him.  
Molly breathes a sigh of relief and helps to slip Caleb down again, back to the flat of the earth.

“Don’t you _dare_ leave him.”

So Jester has been watching.

She’s glaring at him from the other side of camp, her whisper carrying through the grey light of very early morning. Her tail lashes angrily from side to side, and her eyes seem to glow purple with the way the low light hits them. Molly looks at her, levelly,

“I didn’t plan on it.” he tells her, and he slides down beside Caleb, lifts him gently. Frumpkin raises his head for the first time, blinking calmly at Molly from his position on

Caleb’s legs, and Molly eyes him carefully.

“Caleb?” he asks, because it looks like Caleb is asleep, but if he can cast whatever fiery magic he had whilst sleeping, he could probably use the familiar spell too. Frumpkin mewls at him softly, then tucks his head back down and drifts away. Molly breathes a sigh of relief, again, and shuffles closer to Caleb, lets the wizard sleepily snuggle into him.

He sets an arm across Caleb’s waist, kisses the closest part he can reach (which is the bridge of his nose,) and closes his eyes.

 

Caleb has another nightmare just before full dawn. Molly wakes up first- how could he not, with all the writhing Caleb was doing? He waits.  
Caleb fires up about five seconds before he wakes up. Molly puts a hand on his shoulder and pulls himself up as Caleb does, the surprise of contact helping to cut Caleb’s panic off before it really takes hold.

The sight of fire isn’t a pleasant one, though, and Caleb shakes his hands wildly until Molly pats him for his attention and slowly, deliberately, keeping his eyes on Caleb’s, threads his fingers between Caleb’s fire-wrapped, shaking ones, and squeezes.  
The fire dies slowly, but it does die, and Caleb’s eyes are caught by Molly’s so he doesn’t stare at it like he does any other flame they bring remotely near him. Eventually, they’re sat in the beginnings of a light rain, fingers laced together and staring as though the world around them just doesn’t exist. It’s only at Fjord’s first yelp that they fall out of it, as Jester kicks him in the arm, a little too hard.

“Really?” he asks her, and almost as soon as the word is out of his mouth, the sky falls down on them.

Sheets and sheets of freezing water, like someone has tipped a bucket over them, and they all scramble to their feet in horror and shock.

“Just a second.” Molly tells Caleb, and kisses his cheek. Caleb feels the world slip from between his fingers as Molly leaps across Beau as she’s bucking herself awake and takes his coat and scimitars, folds his coat around the blades, and scuffles over to the cart to store them in the driest corner. When he turns, Caleb is there.

“Stay close to me?” he asks, low and quiet enough that the others won’t hear over their annoyed screeching. Molly reaches out and takes the hand most hidden by the shadow of the cart.

“Of course, love.”

Caleb squeezes Molly’s fingers briefly, then pulls away to see to Nott.

 

Molly sits so close to him on the cart that Caleb can feel the heat leaking from him. So much heat, in fact, that less than half an hour in Caleb tells him to stay put a moment and keep an eye out, then heads off to store his books carefully with Molly’s coat so that he can take his own off and drape it over the tiefling when he returns.  
Molly shoots him a curious look.

“Do you not need this?” he asks, lifting the edge of the coat a little to meet Caleb’s eyes. Caleb gives him a rare, genuine smile.

“Arcane energy keeps me warm.” He explains, turning his eyes from Molly to the open road, “I’ll be fine.”

Molly reaches out from his newfound cover to rest his hand over Caleb’s on the side of the cart. They travel in silence. For a while, anyway.  
Caleb sinks, slowly, until he and Molly are so close their shoulders bump with every tiny rock of the cart.

“I’m worried, Molly.” Caleb says eventually, low, quiet, “I will, I will keep… waking up, on fire. What if I hurt someone? Fjord? Beau? _Nott_ ?” He chokes on his words, and Molly leans in to him. He slips his hand down, around, until he can lace his fingers with Caleb’s against the wet wood of the cart.

“I have to ask, though.” Molly says, “Your problem _is_ with fire, yet you fire up when you have nightmares.”

“I- my issue- I have killed people, Mollymauk. It was my fault. I set that priest on fire and there was only bones left. And then that, that man…” he trails off.

“Is it better or worse to put a name to the dead?” Molly asks him, and Caleb swallows. He goes quiet and very, very still as he thinks about it.

“Better.” He says, eventually, eyes fixed hard on the scenery in front of him, but unseeing, “If I, if I kill them, even if they are not good people, the least that I can do is to know the people that I am killing.”

“Trevor.” Molly replies, and squeezes Caleb’s hand, “The bandit from last night was called Trevor.”

“I didn’t- I didn’t know, I don’t remember- after I went down, it’s all a haze, like a dream-”

“It’s okay, Caleb.” Molly says, quiet, “I can tell you.”

“P- please, Mollymauk. I need to know.”

“Alright.” Molly edges his leg over to press against Caleb’s. Caleb presses back. Molly takes a few deep breaths. “The group that attacked us were mostly men that had fallen on hard times and made bad decisions.”

Caleb’s breath catches..

“And it wasn’t your fault.” Molly says firmly, “You did what you had to do to protect us. To protect me, Caleb.” And he turned to catch Caleb’s eye. “Those that remained, we took weapons from, gave them gold, and sent off to fix their ways.”

“We?” Caleb asks,

“Me, Caleb, I gave them money to go home and be safe. I don’t want to see anyone else end up like me, or you, or Beau-” Molly stops to catch his breath and thoughts before they outrun his quick tongue, “They left, nobody else died. You did what you needed to.”

“They could have killed you.” Caleb says quietly,

“And you could have died!” Molly’s voice raises, and he sees Jester look over briefly, then look away again, deliberate. “And if you had, Caleb, it would have been _my fault_ for not keeping a better eye or ear out. You’re not dead, I’m not dead, Nott is alive, we are here. I want to kiss you.”

The tone change damn near throws Caleb off of the cart.

Molly is looking at him, mouth ajar, as though he can’t quite believe what he’s just said.  
The silence stretches.

“I’m sorry, I don’t- I don’t know where-”

“Yes. Please, Gods, yes, Mollymauk.” Caleb splutters, tightening his grip as Molly tries to pull away, and he turns completely, “Please kiss me.”

Molly does.

He takes Caleb’s jaw in the cupped palm of his hand and draws Caleb toward him, pauses a centimetre apart, giving Caleb the chance to step back.

Caleb closes the gap.

Every nerve in Caleb’s body seems to relocate, and he feels every tiny movement that Molly makes, every point of contact burns so white-hot with electric that it threatens to overwhelm him. It’s not a joy, or a finality as he had expected or experienced, but a calm that took him like the eye of a storm.  
Caleb is on fire, and Mollymauk’s touch draws that pain away, sucking venom from a wound, and when Molly finally pulls away Caleb feels drained, content.

“I said I’d stay close.” Molly tells him softly, leaning in to lean his forehead to Caleb’s. His eyes close, his breathing slow and deep. Caleb mimics him, and the moment his eyes close, he feels his shoulders relax. He smells lavender and rain, hears Molly’s breathing filling him, drowning out the white noise of the weather all around him, the clack of the cart, the sound of hooves. Nott is bickering with Beau playfully out the front, and Caleb holds the world in his hands.

He tightens his grip.

**Author's Note:**

> Just noting it agaiiiin, please give me prompts im dying  
> [you can drop anon prompts here](http://mollymockerytealeaf.tumblr.com/ask)!  
> Thank you


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